How a cabal of backbench rural TDs toppled the Fianna Fail party establishment and installed as Taoiseach a man whose political career seemed dead twice in the last decade.

While the termination of Mary Holland's contract as Dublin correspondent of The Observer after 11 years covering Irish affairs for the paper has inevitably attracted most attention in the media there are signs that The Observer's journalists are now limbering up for a major confrontation with the Cruiser on his increasingly imperial interpretation of his role as Editor in Chief.

THE FIANNA FAIL LEADERSHIP, HIS OWN AMBITIONS, POLITICAL REPRESSION, ENERGY AND THE ECONOMY

The Pope's mission to Ireland was not just to plead for an end to violence but to chastise the Irish bishops for failing to identify with the poor and repressed.

How for the first time in four years, Sile de Valera has given Jack Lynch carte blanche on Northern policy.

The Sunday World published a libelous article on Patrick Cooney after the editor had been informed that the basis for the article was false.

Huge oil revenues have destabilised one of the world's most corrupt and repressive regimes, as communists and clerics have joined to topple the Shah.

The significance of Tony Hanahoe's achievement in Gaelic football is already well established.

Questions are again to be asked in the Dail about the fingerprint affair in spite of Gerry Collins' confidence last May that his statement on the 23rd of that month finally disposed of the matter.

The last great medieval rite of the modern world is about to be reinacted as over a hundred aged bachelor men of similiarly confined and blinkered backgrounds meet in secret to appoint from among themselves the leader of the world's largest religious community.